Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2002-0038 is an old denial-of-service issue in IRIX’s unified name service daemon, nsd. A remote attacker could cause nsd’s cache to consume disk space until the disk fills, potentially disrupting the system or dependent services.
Executive priority
Prioritize if legacy IRIX systems support important business operations or are network-exposed. For most organizations, urgency is low to moderate because the affected platform is obsolete, but unmanaged legacy systems can still create operational outage risk.
Technical view
The reported flaw is in the cache-limiting function of nsd on IRIX 6.5.4 through 6.5.11. The CVE states remote attackers can force the cache to fill disk space, causing denial of service. No CVSS score, CWE, patch detail, or exploitation evidence is provided in the supplied sources.
Likely exposure
Exposure is likely limited to legacy SGI IRIX systems running versions 6.5.4 through 6.5.11 with nsd reachable by untrusted networks. Most modern environments will not be affected unless they retain legacy IRIX assets.
Exploitation context
The sources describe remote denial of service by disk exhaustion. They do not indicate active exploitation, public exploit availability, or inclusion in CISA KEV. Treat internet-reachable or business-critical legacy IRIX hosts as higher priority.
Researcher notes
Available evidence is sparse and old. The CVE description and IBM X-Force reference align on IRIX nsd cache-based disk exhaustion. No official fix details, CVSS vector, affected CPEs, or exploitation status are present in the supplied bundle.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory for IRIX 6.5.4 through 6.5.11 systems.
- Check vendor or archival SGI guidance for official fixes.
- Restrict untrusted network access to nsd where operationally possible.
- Monitor affected systems for abnormal cache or disk growth.
- Plan retirement or isolation of unsupported legacy IRIX systems.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether any IRIX hosts run versions 6.5.4 through 6.5.11.
- Determine whether nsd is enabled on those hosts.
- Review network paths exposing nsd to untrusted sources.
- Check disk utilization trends and nsd cache growth.
- Document compensating controls for any systems that cannot be patched.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
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CVE-2002-0038 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- irix-nsd-cache-dos(7907)CVE reference · vdb-entry, x_refsource_XF
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.